THE INFLUENCE OF THE "PAN" CHARACTER IN THE ANCIENT GREEK MYTHOLOGY ON THE WESTERN MUSIC COMPOSERS

finds a place for itself in literature, painting, sculpture, theater, philosophy as well as music. The intellectual and emotional events in mythology are also considered as raw material of music. It is known that music and mythology are often mentioned together starting from ancient times until our present time. While it is possible to come across stories about music in the Greek mythology, the composers have used mythological stories in their compositions. Within this framework, with the attempts to revive Greek tragedies in Florence in the 16th century, the characters of the Ancient Greece mythology began to take place in the music by means of the opera. The examples of Greek mythology, which began to show effects in music, have begun to show itself with opera, ballet, chamber and orchestral music genres. Especially with the influence of trends of programmed music, impressionist music, musical primitivism, and random music which emerged in the 19th century; the works of art that describe the Greek mythology are also seen today exceedingly. One of the mythological figures which catches the attention of the composers in music studies in Greek mythology is "Pan", which is semi-human, semi-goat. It has given its name to the pan flute, also called syrinx which is invented. It represents sexual power and the word fear (Pan-ic). In this work, the features of Pan, one of the characters of Ancient Greek mythology reflected to music from the past until our present day, its influence on the composers and the examples of musical instrument, vocal, opera, ballet, chamber and orchestral music will be discussed.